A history of Italian literature

by Richard Garnett

Hear’st not the note of merry horn
That calls thee to the chase?
(In glades of ancient oak and thorn
The deer hath left his trace.)

With manly vesture, trim and tight,
Those budding breasts be bound;
(I hear thy jennet neigh delight,
And paw the paven ground.)

Soho! my beauty! down the stairs
At last! Aha! Huzza!
(Red morning o’er the mountain flares.)
To saddle! and away!

It is manifest that although the Carduccis and D’Annunzios of the present day may not rank higher as poets than the Montis and Leopardis of the past, they have done far more to fit the Italian lyre with new strings, and have opened up paths of progress formerly undreamed of. Many of the novel and exotic forms they have introduced will richly repay cultivation, but the problem will be to employ the technique acquired by their practice to the embellishment and elevation of forms more adapted for general use. This the great master of modern Italian poetry has seen, and, magnificently as he has handled the more elaborate harmonies, it is the simple, popular song that he invokes after all, while incomparably exemplifying it:

Cura e onor de’ padri miei,
Tu mi sei
Come lor sacra e diletta.
Ave, o rima: e dammi un fiore
Per l’amore,
E per l’odio una saetta.

Apart from these two chief names Italy possesses at present a number of excellent lyrical poets. The best known is perhaps Olindo Guerrini, whose first poems, Posthuma, supposed to be edited from the papers of an imaginary Lorenzo Stecchetti, caused a great sensation, not so much by their unquestionable talent as by their audacious immorality. Of late years Guerrini has produced a number of poems on the political circumstances of the country, many of which are perfect masterpieces of refined form and energetic expression. As much may be said for the political verses of the Parliamentary orator Felice Cavallotti. The poet of the social revolution is Mario Rapisardi, a Sicilian, known also as the literary antagonist of Carducci; while the sorrows of the poor are pathetically expressed by a lady, Ada Negri. Alessandro Arnaboldi, lately deceased, possessed an eminent faculty for description and excelled in grave and dignified lyric, not unlike Matthew Arnold; while Italy has her James Thomson in the gloomy and powerful Arturo Graf. Antonio Fogazzaro, on the other hand, is the poet of hope and faith. Enrico Panzacchi, less individual than most of these, surpasses them all in grace and variety; Edmondo de Amicis, celebrated as a traveller, has the gift of brilliant description; Luigi Capuana has emulated Carducci’s metrical experiments; and excellent poetry has been produced by Giovanni Marradi, Giuseppe Pascoli, and Alfredo Baccelli. Translated specimens of these and other poets, with biographical and bibliographical particulars, will be found in Mr. G. A. Greene’s Italian Lyrists of To-Day. On the whole, the present condition of Italian poetry is one of abundant vitality, but of deficient concentration either in great men or great poems. The serious drama is best represented by Cavallotti’s tragedies and the New Testament trilogy of Giuseppe Bovio, and the humorous by the comedies of Roberto Bracco and Giacinto Gallina.

The novel is at present as vigorously cultivated in Italy as in any civilised nation, and the talent it attracts cannot be altogether devoid of results. No talent, however, succeeds in permanently naturalising forms of literature uncongenial to the national mind, and it remains to be seen whether this is or is not the case with the novel in Italy. The novelette arose spontaneously, and was maintained without difficulty; but with every encouragement from the example of other nations, Italy failed to acclimatise either romantic fiction or the novel of manners, until far entered into the nineteenth century. The inference that lengthy story-telling must be alien to the genius of the people is confirmed by the general inferiority of modern Italian novelists. One or two, such as Matilda Serao, Salvatore Farini, and Giulio Barrili, have acquired a reputation beyond the limits of their own country. One or two others, such as Antonio Fogazzaro, the leader of a reaction towards a spiritualistic conception of things; Carlo Placci, the very promising author of Un Furto; and Luciano Zuccoli, author of Roberta, have shown the ability to impress themselves upon the national literature.

Only two, however, seem to stand forth very decidedly as masters of fiction. One of them is Gabriele d’Annunzio, already treated as a poet. D’Annunzio’s novels have made more noise than his poems, being from one point of view much more, from another much less, suited for general perusal. The scandal which has grown up about them has diverted attention from their real merits of fine style and conscientious workmanship. As an artist, D’Annunzio is almost as admirable in prose as in verse; and if with his descriptive he combined the creative gift, all his immoralities would not debar him from permanent renown. Unfortunately, he is like most French and Italian novelists, monotonously restricted to the portrayal of a single passion, and his splendid scenery is the background for trivial characters. He reminds us of the demon in Victor Hugo’s poem, who consumes the strength of lions and the wisdom of elephants in fashioning a locust. This is the besetting sin of the novelists of France and Italy: with a few brilliant exceptions on both sides, the English novel lives by character, the French by situation. D’Annunzio’s novels are nevertheless important literary events, and cannot be omitted from any survey of modern European literature. They have already gained him renown and circulation in France and the United States. The most celebrated are Il Piacere, Il Trionfo della Morte, La Vergine delle Rocce, the last of which is exempt from most of the objections justly urged against the others.

GIOVANNI VERGA (b. 1840) rivals the European reputation of D’Annunzio, and is, like him, the head of a realistic school; but his realism is of quite another sort, owing nothing to Zola or Maupassant. He is the most eminent European representative of the local novel, dealing with the manners, humours, and peculiar circumstances of some special locality. The vogue of this style was perhaps originally due to George Sand’s idyllic pictures of Berri. Verga has found a yet more interesting corner of the world to delineate. A Sicilian, though residing at Milan, he has made his native island the scene of his fiction. Centuries of misgovernment have unhappily accumulated stores of tragic material in the people’s misery and oppression, and the ferocity and vindictiveness these have engendered. Verga depicts these circumstances with the fidelity of a dispassionate observer and the skill of an artist. His books not only attract in their own day, but will be treasured in the future among the most valuable documents for the social history of Sicily.

Any one of even the minor poets whom we have enumerated has a chance of reaching posterity, for their work is at all events individual, and expressive of the personality of the author. If this is sufficiently interesting, the work may live, though it be far from inaugurating a new literary era like Carducci’s. It is otherwise with the contemporary prose literature of Italy. A history, a biography, philology like Ascoli’s or D’Ancona’s, a work on social science like Sella’s or Morselli’s may possess great value as the work of an expert, even though devoid of individuality; but in this case it must sooner or later lapse into the category of books of reference. Such appears to be the case with most of the excellent work now being done in Italy in these and other departments: the statue is carved, but no name is inscribed upon the pedestal, for the sculpture is the work of a craftsman, not of an artist. Exceptions may be made in favour of a few writers recently deceased—Ruggiero Bonghi, translator of Plato and historian of Rome, one of the soundest heads in Italy; Giuseppe Chiarini, champion of Carducci; Enrico Nencioni, lately lost to his country, a high authority upon English literature; Angelo de Gubernatis, a brilliant and almost too versatile critic and philologist; and Giuseppe Guerzoni, raised above himself by his theme when he wrote the life of Garibaldi. Among living men, two at least have won an abiding reputation as writers, apart from the utilitarian worth of their work—Pascale Villari, biographer of Savonarola and Machiavelli, and writer on the social conditions of the South; and Domenico Comparetti, author of Virgilio nel Medio Evo. In general, however, the chief distinction of contemporary writers on serious subjects seems to be their general diligence and good sense. Admirable writers have gained European renown for themselves, and exalted the fame of their country by the substantial merit of works making no especial pretension to literary distinction. Thus Ascoli stands high in general philology; D’Ancona, Tigri, and Rubieri in literary history; Lanciani and Rossi in archæology; Nitti in historical research; Pasolini and Solerti in biography; Cremona in mathematics; Lombroso and Ferrero in psychology; and Cossa in political economy.